According to Fortune, the global IVF industry is now a $28 billion enterprise with 2024 seeing $2 billion in investment, a 55% increase over 2023. Herasight founders are personally using embryo screening—Michael Christensen wants shorter children than his 6-foot-6 frame, while Tobias Wolfram seeks to eliminate family depression history. Nucleus Genomics, backed by Reddit founder Alexis Ohanian, is running subway ads urging people to “Have Your Best Baby” while embryo-editing startup Preventive has raised $30 million from Coinbase’s Brian Armstrong and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s husband. Orchid Health, backed by 23andMe’s Anne Wojcicki and used reportedly by Elon Musk’s partner Shivon Zilis, offers polygenic risk scoring for over 1,000 diseases. Meanwhile, Chinese scientists have successfully created mice from two male fathers, and uterus transplants have resulted in 29 live births worldwide.
Designer babies arrive
We’ve been talking about designer babies for decades, but now they’re actually happening. And it’s not just about avoiding serious diseases anymore. These tech founders are screening for everything from height preferences to eliminating family history of depression. What’s fascinating is they’re not hiding it—they’re openly discussing wanting children who are more comfortable on airplanes or slightly taller than 5’9″. The normalization of this is happening incredibly fast.
Money meets reproduction
Here’s the thing: when you combine Silicon Valley’s risk tolerance with extreme wealth, you get people willing to spend thousands on embryo screening even when fertility isn’t an issue. They’re opting for IVF from the start just to access these selection technologies. And the money flowing in is staggering—$2 billion in 2024 alone. With backers like Reddit’s Alexis Ohanian and Coinbase’s Brian Armstrong, this isn’t some fringe movement anymore.
Ethical vacuum
But here’s where it gets really messy. As fertility lawyer Rich Vaughn told Fortune, “Technology will always outpace the law.” We’re racing into uncharted territory with embryo editing that’s actually illegal in 70 countries. Cathy Tie at Manhattan Genomics wants to start testing gene correction on nonhuman primates next year before moving to human embryos. That’s not science fiction—that’s happening now.
And the line keeps moving. Stanford’s Barry Behr makes a compelling point: “A parent would do anything—give a kidney, give a limb, or whatever you could give to a child to avert suffering.” But where do you draw the line between preventing suffering and optimizing traits? We’re already seeing ads in New York subways for intelligence and height screening. What happens when someone offers eye color or athletic ability?
Science fiction becoming reality
The wildest part might be what’s happening at the edges. Chinese scientists creating mice from two male fathers? Penis transplants? Uterus transplants leading to live births? This isn’t theoretical anymore. We’re literally redefining what reproduction means. And with AI-enabled IVF processes developing that could lower costs substantially, this technology won’t stay exclusive to the wealthy forever.
Stanford law professor Hank Greely, who literally wrote the book predicting this shift, says Silicon Valley parents are most interested in influencing intelligence and personality traits—areas scientists “know almost nothing about” genetically. So we’re making irreversible decisions about future humans based on incomplete science. What could possibly go wrong?
The conversation has shifted from “should we” to “how much.” And honestly, I’m not sure we’re having the right conversations at all. When you’ve got startups like Conceivable working on automated IVF and companies plastering subway stations with “Have Your Best Baby” ads, the genie isn’t just out of the bottle—it’s running the marketing department.
